Rollercoaster of tragic romance

The Last Five Years
Reading Rep
Tuesday,
September 23

IT will take a while to get over the intensity of The Last Five Years, Reading Rep’s fourth anniversary show.

It’s a spectacular entertainment full of humour and sadness. It manages to be both powerful and intimate while touching on just about every emotion as it freewheels backwards and forwards through a doomed relationship.

The concept leans a little on Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, but with the twist of the lovers starting the piece at different ends of their affair. It means that hope and optimism go hand in hand with bitterness and disillusionment and nothing is more poignant than the end with the two singing in opposition — Cathy excited and nervous about her new boyfriend, Jamie broken and wounded by the break-up.

There’s a minimal set but varied enough to do the job. However, this piece hangs on the two almost totally sung performances of Cathy and Jamie; Martha Kirby and Guy Woolf rise to this challenge and meet it head on. They are inspiring as performers and there is never a time when they’re not believed.

The piece calls for accomplished musicianship from the singers as well as convincing acting and you might think that’s expected from professional performers, but it isn’t always a given; here it infuses every minute.

Kirby’s and Woolf’s energy and commitment shine through and they make the whole nearly 90 minutes speed through. A lot of that is also down to direction and particularly the writing, which is always restless and stimulating.

And then there’s the band: Ellie Verkeck-Hughes leads the charge as music director, and she’s backed up by Rebecca Demmer on cello, Wills Mercado on guitar and Angus Tikka on bass.

Not only are these highly competent players, Verkeck-Hughes and Tikka especially, they chip in as chorus, extras and in one case a mistress.

Reading Rep has come a long way since its ambitious plan to have a professional theatre in the town was realised four years ago; The Last Five Years will cement its reputation.

After its Reading run it tours to the Barn in Cirencester and the Ustinov Studio Theatre as part of the Theatre Royal Bath.

It’s a gem of a piece and has taken performance to a new level in Reading. Runs until Tuesday, October 14.

Mike Rowbottom